the first was on the first day of office by william hurt -- heard, who asked him to raise the debt ceiling. i think he was inaugurated january 20. there were five immediate meetings to raise it. they told him the government would go out of business february 18. several senators flipped and held him a birthday party to celebrate they raised the debt ceiling, but byrd held out and got several military and upgrades in his state. playbook. can you comment on 1981? guest: i think what you are trying to say is they used that ceiling as leverage to force a budget deal. yes, that has been used in the past. raising the debt ceiling is very important. it seems difficult to understand why we're taking on more debt. the reality is you cannot get to lower deficits and reducing the debt unless we have some kind of budget agreement that starts to bring them the deficit long term. you do not want to play with the u.s. economy. not raising the debt ceiling can create all kinds of problems. it could potentially make the u.s. currency no longer the world currency. that means some of the benefits we enjoy in